cleveland and columbus officially sold out.

according to billboard, oaklahoma city sold out as well

according to this

http://www.prince.org/msg...sg_1545243

ft lauderdale and tampa sold out these past two nights

Add the 4 you listed, and that's 9 out of 20 shows thus far sold out. According to the link above, 5 of the next 12 are also sold out already. Who knows if more got missed - we'll have to wait for billboard to update this page to find out for the shows that made the top 10 grosses for the week

http://www.billboard.com/...xscore.jsp

And adding in the shows may seem easy to you, but that doesn't mean it happens that way. There was an article posted her that clearly explained how and why the CDs would be added as well as why only the one show would be added this week.

alandail said:

No they didn't. They were close though.

alandail said:

It's wrong. The Ford Center is a 20,000 seat venue.

alandail said:

Wrong again. The Ft. Lauderdale show was also close however. And the St. Petersburg show hasn't taken place yet.

4 of the now 19 shows have sold out since the tour began.
[This message was edited Mon Apr 26 1:18:52 2004 by TheGoldExperience]

GoldExperience-it seems to be bumming you out that Prince moved a lot of cd's this week (not counting the -->1<-- concert that is being counted) and by the tag you have " Hey look, it's The Artist Formely Known To Sell Records" it seems to make you happy when he doesn't sell,whats the deal? you started out good when you picked an excellent album name as your nickname..but what went wrong?

I'm still interested to hear what people think are the ramifications of counting albums given at concerts for every ticket sold. Seems to me there's a lot of interesting 'what if' scenarios.

For example, what if Prince was 'giving away' an older album? Like Rave or something? That might push it into the top ten of the charts - but it certainly wouldn't be a reflection of the popularity of the album, only a measure of the popularity of people wanting to see Prince live. I don't see anywhere where Billboard or Soundscan or whoever have said it has to be the CURRENT album that is being promoted, just as long as it is after the release date.

It may be that a lot of artists with a warehouse full of unsold older albums but are popular live will go out on tour, up the concert ticket price ten quid, 'give away' the old album, and get back in the charts, as a strategy to get their names in the headlines again - and finally clear that warehouse!

Think that won't happen? Something very similar has just happened in the UK - Marillion are at number 7 in the singles chart because they made an appeal to fans on their website to buy at least 3 singles each, and obviously a lot did.

I just think it is going to make the charts meaningless!

"And at number 4 we have a new entry with Fleetwood Mac with Rumours, at number 3 we have Dido's new album, at number 2 we have Dido's old album, and straight in at number one after 20 years we have Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' album, boosted by the album giveaway at his recent 'The Hits - one last time' tour...."

Oh, and another thought. If it was Britney rather than Prince who was doing this album giveaway thing, and she ended up in front of Prince in the album charts because of it, we'd all be crying foul, saying, you can't include albums given away at concerts, that's unfair!

It is only because it is our hero that has done it first that we are all cheering!

well it's not the 1st time Prince has givin a record away...i remember The Holy River being givin away free at all Border's stores

anyway any album older than 2 years old goes straight to the Pop Catalog chart and not on the billboard top 200 chart so i don't think there's much incentive there to give away older albums

the singles chart was ruined years ago when some companies decided not to release retail singles because they were losing money on the singles..but i think that all started when Mariah Carey priced her single (i forget which one) at 39 cents to ensure a #1 spot

as far as the album chart goes and the concert albums being counted i think Billboard knows what its doing..they didn't do this just for Prince's sake..it's something they have been planning on a long time and Prince being as smart as he is was up on this

Mazerati said:

The Pop catalogue chart?

You do have far too many different charts in America, you do know that, don't you?
Do you have a chart specifically for country r'n'b singers with an x in their name? Just in case?

Doesn't really matter if it goes into the Pop catalogue chart or not, it's still a potential way of selling unsold stock and putting a tenner on the price of our concert tix!

this is so bizarre! i dont understand how so many people are so confused about it all.and i mean no disrespect when i say that,it seems to be a confusing subject.

re: sales: they HAVE SOLD in STORES at least 150,000 copies, ive read this on several reports (sadly im shit and cant give links) but even the billboard article has said it. for the first week the only cd sales through tickets counted are for 17.500. hence them saying prince is expected to have about 150-180 sales and still not challenge mario wayans or whoever.

as for this fucking sellout thing, billboard boxscore has reported 5 sellouts already, and prince is playing some smaller places that wont make it onto boxscore but have still been reported by reviews as sellouts. so im guessing its more than 25% just for the record (plus there have been several fan reviews saying they asked ushers who said its been considered a sellout and stuff) also, if i remember correctly, i was also argued (more importatnly at the time as well i think) that average capacity would only be 50% when its probably been far far far far higher, hopefully someone can back that up but from all fan reports ive read, only a couple of places havent been packed close to capacity.


as for the ramifications for the future re: "selling" cds through live shows, yeah thats interesting and obviously, as ive said in another thread, its not unfeasible that in a couple of years the top 20 cds on billboard will all be pulling in an extra 75k a week through these sales, and also if you did a big tour of places like 40k stadiums that could change it even more, imagine if bruce springsteen had done that on his last tour. he would have been number one essentially for the whole tour.

however, lets not forget that its not going to be hard to take away the number of cds prince "sells" through touring from the number sold at retail. aside from various news reports we will no doubt get on it we will get attendance figures too and so on.

one thing i dont understand that people can doubt though, is that he's selling records!!! at least 150k this week! people can go on about promotion and yes thats true, but when prince wasnt selling any record a couple fo years ago and people were saying "he'll never sell at big numbers ever again" they never said "but obviously with promotion anyone can sell and it doesnt really mean anything". so to turn round and say "but its all promotion" is abit weak!
but please note im not naming names for that! so dont turn round and flame me, its just a general attitude i get from people, and again, i cant name anyone in particular, hence it being in general!

peaceout!

EvilWhiteMale said:

Sympathy for devil? ho ho ho...I don't think so. Say what You wanna and be prepared to may hear what you don't wanna...easy, uh?

alandail,

I'd like you to take a close look at the Billboard Boxscore link you provided. I can show to you and prove why all of this verification is nonsense. The Columbia, SC show which is apparently the only show being counted towards the overall sales for this week is also nonsense. For example, Rod Stewart's show at the Xcel Energy Center on April 18 that's listed on the Boxscore. It was posted on Billboard.com on Wednesday, April 21. That shows and proves that they don't need to be sitting on it for a week in order for it to ridiculously count and be verified. If that's not proof that Prince concert attendances for this week ridiculously count toward sales and not just the Columbia, SC show, then I don't what does.
[This message was edited Mon Apr 26 15:59:13 2004 by TheGoldExperience]

TheGoldExperience said:

You can't possibly be this stupid....

I'll type this in all-caps just to make sure you and anyone else who haven't had their morning coffee can read it and understand it:

THE COUNTING OF ALBUMS "GIVEN AWAY" AT PRINCE'S CONCERTS WILL ADD 17,500 AT MOST TO MUSICOLOGY'S SALES TOTALS!!

So...if you're completely settled in towards minimizing whatever chart success Prince has with this album, you can ONLY subtract about 17,00 from the grand total..NOT 100,000...don't bother trying to rationalize why I'm wrong, because I'm not.

Sheesh...lol




...Yes, Byron is that stupid edit..
[This message was edited Mon Apr 26 16:07:34 2004 by Byron]

Byron said:

My previous post proves you wrong. You obviously cannot read.
[This message was edited Mon Apr 26 16:22:48 2004 by TheGoldExperience]

TheGoldExperience said:

In case you didn't know, the Ford Center has three different set-ups for "in the round" concerts...which means it can hold different amounts of people "up to" 20,000...not that EVERY concert will hold 20,000...Prince's people decided which set up they wanted for the amount of people they expected to show...and for the set-up they chose, they sold it out.

Simple.

TheGoldExperience said:

and obviously you can't apply logic...

Did Billboard need to verify ANYTHING concerning "free" CDs given away at Rod Stewart's concert to use that info for their Album chart??....No??...Hmm, well maybe that's why it will take a more thorough attendance accounting for Prince's concerts than it will for Rod's...which of course when applying logic, means that it wil take LONGER to do so....

TGE, you are in for a world of pain if yopu are going to argue with Byron.

bkw said:

And also, you're just wrong. There have a been a zillion official posts stating that only 17, 500 copies of the concert CD will count as a sale. I don't really get Billboard's real logic, and yes I think it's weird, but that is the reality of the situation.

bkw said:

...I haven't done this in a LONG time...(or at least it feels that way)...But I have more important things to attend to today...

You peeps are cracking me up. Who cares only person profiting will be Prince. If you like the music fine , if you don't fine. Prince knows how to market himself.

Byron said:

It would be a waste of energy argueing with him anyway. He's as stubborn and bitter as Bart but with no where near the intelligence.

If TGE keeps on going the way he is he will fall right off the edge of the earth.

Byron said:

You must be joking.

Prince's "in the round" stage for the Musicology tour is a 360 degrees configuration setup. That enables all of the seats in the arena to be sold. And the only reason that they wouldn't sell all of the seats in the arena is if they didn't sell enough tickets to have it look full. Simple. It wasn't sold out. They changed the capacity to fit the attendance afterwards. Want proof? Look at the ticket prices. They state two different price levels. One for the balcony and one for the floor/plaza section Then take a look at the gross of the concert. And to add to that, the attendance was really 12,151 not 13,651. Because of the fact that when concerts are 2/3 full or less, promoters give 1,500 tickets away (standard) to make it look more full.

In the future, please know what you're talking about when talking about things like this.

Thanks.

..some folks can't be stisfied if Prince is doin' well or if he isn't...all I know is, I was at the Columbia show, and I didn't see any empty seats....that being said...letitgo, people.... damn aint it enough that the man is in the "know" again...shit..what will it take to satisfy a Prince fan??

Byron said:

I've already proven you that be wrong Give it a rest. You're assuming here. I'm showing you proof.

I went to the local Best Buy today (San Diego) and there was not ONE copy of Musicology to be seen . . .

They had about a dozen copies of TRC, and God-knows-how-many copies of The Very Best Of (I hate that CD!).

TheGoldExperience's

signature reads:

'Tis a shame to diss when one can't even spell

Wonders if he/she even knows which word it is

Se7en said:

I went yesterday to pick one up for a friend & there were only 5 left

CalhounSq said:

Well, is that your rebutal? You're pretty fucking sad if all you can comment on is the typo in my signature. And guess what? I'm going to keep it that way just to let you know you caught me with a typo. ROTF A+ for effort!

TheGoldExperience said:

great - you think you've proven it, but billboard magazine clearly stated you are wrong

http://www.prince.org/msg/7/91020

alandail said:

I've shown and proven to you why they're wrong.

TheGoldExperience said:

rebuttal: The act of rebutting; a statement made in rebutting.

rebut: to refute, especially by offering opposing evidence or arguments.

I was simply commenting on your signature, that it's a shame to diss when your own shit is WHACK. Please note the difference between a "comment" & a "rebuttal"... and get yourself a dictionary




.
[This message was edited Mon Apr 26 23:30:56 2004 by CalhounSq]

softandwet said:

are the tickets that much more expensive though? i mean, i can understood abit how come you're so pissed off, is this the fourth thread you've put this message in (in certain variants?) ive looked at it on the billboard charts and the tickets dont seem that much more expensive (ie they dont seem $10 more expensive across the board).
personally i think "giving away" the cds is great, but i understand how the perception of it being a giveaway makes it abit disappointing in one sense that he's actually including it in the price of the ticket. what would be weird would be if everyone did that to get in the top 40 you'd probably need to be on tour![/quote]
I think Prince is giving away the album to people because he wanted to let the masses know that he still records good music...without a record company.